Ken Douglas - Ragged Man

Winding her way through the trees, back toward the stream, she felt a presence behind her, something bad, maybe a bear. She picked up her pace, no longer concerned with the dead leaves cracking under her feet. Then she heard something and turned. She thought she saw movement behind, movement not caused by the soft, silent breeze brushing her sweating skin. She turned back toward the stream and home-and ran.

She saw the stream. She put on a burst of speed and flew over it. The forest noises picked up as soon as her feet hit ground on the other side. A bird or two at first, then the insect sounds followed by more birds. She slowed to a walk and chided herself. She had undoubtedly panicked over nothing. She felt foolish, like a little girl out after dark for the first time, but she wouldn’t have felt so foolish if she hadn’t been spending so much time alone up on the hill, with only her son and the pigeons for companions.

If she had been more in touch with the town, she would have heard the stories.

J.P. woke the instant the forest went quiet. Unlike his mother, he had spent time in town and was familiar with the stories, stories about the strange happenings. They started shortly after the day of the murders, the day his cousin Janis disappeared.

That same day, the murder day, the sheriff’s two German Shepherds, Woodruff and Dandy, failed to show up for dinner and everyone assumed they had been stolen, or worse, poisoned. Sheriff Sturgees was in the habit of letting the dogs roam free around town. They were friendly, tame and everybody liked and fed them, but they would roam no more and now J.P. and a lot of the other kids were sure they knew why.

Two nights after the Shepherds vanished, some of the junior high school boys were playing baseball at the park, when Dick Rainmaker, out in left field, saw an animal across the street, running along the beach. He said it looked like a black cougar with a wolf’s head.

The next night the Johnson’s cat vanished and then the stray cats around town started disappearing. Then Johnny Miller’s collie didn’t come home.

The kids that played at the park credited the mysterious disappearances to the Ghost Dog, and they had taken to calling it Black Fang, because Johnny Miller was half way through Jack London’s White Fang when his dog went away for good.

“ Black Fang,” J.P. thought, when the forest went quiet. He shuddered, despite himself, because he didn’t want to believe in the Ghost Dog any more than he believed in Santa Claus or Green Lantern. But there was a lot of ground covered between the man with a bowl full of jelly and the Guardians of the Universe. Things like vampires, werewolves, Superman and aliens, and the more he thought about it, the more he was beginning to wonder if there wasn’t something to the stories, because yesterday Dick Rainmaker’s dad took one of their horses out for a ride and never came back.

The grownups said that old Andrew Jackson Rainmaker was plain tired of his nagging wife and kids. So tired that he saddled up and rode away. The sheriff wasn’t even going to look for Mr. Rainmaker till he’d been gone at least two days, but the boys that played at the park, Dick Rainmaker included, knew that it would make no difference. The sheriff would never find him, and he’d never be back. Black Fang got him, sure as shit.

J.P. got out of bed, went down the hall to his mother’s room and knocked on the door, expecting her to invite him in. When she didn’t answer, he pushed it open, then he remembered that she had started running in the mornings.

He wished she believed him about the Ghost Dog. Dick Rainmaker believed. Dick was scared, and Dick was fifteen.

He’d wanted to talk to his mom about the Ghost Dog last night, but when he got home, she was in one of her moods. She hadn’t eaten all day and was cranky. He didn’t know why she wanted to get skinny all of a sudden. He thought she looked fine and he hated it when she was cross with him for being a few minutes late, even though she apologized to him minutes later. He wished she would just eat and be her old self.

So last night he forgot about the Ghost Dog and went to his room and watched television till after midnight. It was the latest he had ever stayed up by himself. Now, still sleepy and staring at his mother’s empty bed, he had the sudden feeling that Black Fang was after his mom.

He ran back to his room and swiftly changed from his pajamas into jeans, tee shirt and high top tennis shoes. He didn’t waste time with socks. He was in a hurry to get outside and find his mom. He wished he had told her about the Ghost Dog, because all of a sudden he was afraid his mom was going to disappear like Dick Rainmaker’s dad.

Dressed, he ran from the bedroom. If he wasn’t too late, he thought, he might be able to warn her and save her. He would tell her not to go running on the beach anymore. She should stay inside. It was safer inside.

The forest noises stopped again, as suddenly as they had started. She quickened her pace. Something was moving behind her, something that frightened the forest creatures into silence, something bad. She started to run, but before she hit her stride, she tripped over a fallen branch. She thrust her arms out to break her fall, skinning both hands on the hard ground. She felt a sharp stab of pain in her right arm as it buckled under her, but despite the pain, she lay still, afraid to move and afraid not to. She listened to the silence.

There is nothing there, she told herself. Then she rolled onto her side and saw the reddened swelling midway between her elbow and her wrist. Pushing off with her left hand, she stood. White hot pain shot through her arm. She tried to think through the haze of panic and pain.

The forest remained silent. Her skin was alive. She felt a cold chill as a vomit-like smell assaulted her. Nearby, bushes moved. She knew it wasn’t the wind. The morning had calmed. She heard something behind the bushes. There was something there, scraping against the ground. The only audible sound in the forest, save for the sound of her heavy breathing. There was definitely something in there, and she felt like it was stalking her.

She darted her eyes in all directions. She was trapped. She wondered it if was a mountain lion. She had never heard of them in these woods, but she supposed it was possible. She heard a low growl and her mouth went dry. Her eyes stayed glued to the bushes. They weren’t moving now. Whatever was in there was being still. It growled again, more like a big dog, she thought.

Afraid to move and afraid not to, she inched away from the bushes on the other side of the creek toward home and safety. The thing in the bushes growled and started to move. She moved a little faster. The pain in her arm was like wild fire.

The thing roared and she saw a black blur leap the creek and vanish into the pines ahead of her. Oh my god, she thought, it’s between me and the house. Thinking quickly, she reversed her direction-and ran. She was too afraid now to deal with pain.

She rejumped the creek and started pumping her runner’s legs, dodging tree and bush the best she could, but still getting several scrapes. The thing roared again, giving her an adrenaline rush. Scratched and bleeding, she ran for the sluice with the thing behind her. She felt it closing as she neared the path down the hill. The adrenaline gave added strength. She lept off the hill, landing on her behind in the center of the vee in the sluice.

The landing knocked the wind out of her, but she had no time to catch her breath, she was sliding down the hill and it was all she could do to keep from tumbling head over heels. Instinctively, she lay back and tried clutching the dirt sides to slow her slide. Failing, she grabbed at thinly growing shrubs, but to no avail. She was going over loose dirt, small rocks were ripping at her clothes and there was nothing she could do about it till she hit bottom. She was frantic. She didn’t think she was going to make it. She was about to give up, when the angle of slide leveled a bit. She used the opportunity to grab onto a shrub with her good hand and managed to stop her slide and catch her breath.